President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team contacted former Utah Rep. Chris Stewart about a possible appointment as director of national intelligence, the Deseret News confirmed.

Stewart, an Air Force veteran who represented Utah’s Second Congressional District from 2013 to 2023, has been in discussions with Trump’s team about the role of overseeing the U.S. intelligence community, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Before running for office, Stewart was an author and small business owner. He served in the military, both as a rescue helicopter and as a bomber pilot.

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During his decade in Congress, Stewart received top-secret briefings as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and traveled to Russia to discuss international relations and to western China to visit the Uighur people.

“There is nothing in intelligence that I haven’t been exposed to and that I don’t know,” Stewart told the Deseret News after his last day in Congress in September 2023.

Stewart resigned from the U.S. House to spend more time with his wife, who had suffered a stroke a year earlier. Stewart’s seat was filled by his former legal adviser, Rep. Celeste Maloy, whom he endorsed.

Immediately after his resignation, Stewart started a new government affairs firm, Skyline Capitol, focused on geopolitical consulting, in partnership with American Global Strategies LLC, an international consulting firm founded by former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, also a Utah native.

On Tuesday, Stewart congratulated three of Trump’s national security appointments, who were also his former colleagues in Congress: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as secretary of state; Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., as national security adviser; and Representative Elise Stefanik, RN.Y., as ambassador to the United Nations.

“There is no doubt: they will build a stronger and more secure America,” Stewart said in a post on nation to defend.”